Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v2.djvu/112

96 Mr. PITTS said, it was impossible to consider the whole until the parts had been examined. Our constituents, said he, have a right to demand of us the reasons which shall influence us to vote as we shall do. He must, he said, therefore oppose the motion.

The Hon. Mr. KING, Col. SMITH, and several other gentlemen, spoke against the motion.

Mr. WIDGERY opposed the motion's being winked out of sight. He wished, he said, the question might be put, that the sense of the Convention respecting it might be taken.

Gen. THOMPSON said, it was not essential how the matter was considered; but he wished to have the whole subject at large open to discussion, so that every body might speak to it. A member, says he, gets up and speaks, but he is called to order, as not confining himself to the particular paragraph under debate; and this puts him out. In his opinion, he said, the Constitution, and the reasons which induced gentlemen to frame it, ought to have been sent to the several towns to be considered by them. My town, said he, considered it seven hours, and after this there was not one in favor of it. If this had been done, we should have known the minds of the people on it; and should we dare, he asked, to act different from the sense of the people? It is strange, he said, that a system, which its planners say is so plain, that he that runs may read it, should want so much explanation.

[The question being generally called for, the motion was put, and negatived, without a return of the house. The endeavors of gentlemen to hush to silence a small buzz of congratulation, among a few citizens in the gallery, being mistaken by some of the members for a hiss, created a momentary agitation in the Convention, which, however, after a short conversation, subsided.]

The eighth section was again read.

The Hon. Mr. SEDGWICK went into a general answer to the objections which had been started against the powers to be granted to Congress by this section. He showed the absolute necessity there was that the body which had the security of the whole for their object, should have the necessary means allowed them to effect it; and in order to secure the people against the abuse of this power, the